How to use the TourCMS API (article)

Susana Moleón
Susana Moleón
  • Updated

TourCMS provides with a full API list of methods which can be used by Marketplace agents to access content from multiple TourCMS accounts or by individual account owners to access their own data. These API calls are to access your live product, booking and customer data in realtime.

What is the API development process?

For online travel agents (OTAs) doing an API integration:

  1. Sign up for a trial travel agent account to become Marketplace agent
  2. Login, connect to the test operator (3930) which you can do from inside your trial travel agent account. You will use this account for development / testing. TEST BOOKINGS should only be made to the test operator/supplier account, not real trading accounts
  3. Find a supplier to connect their REAL account to you, so you can see their product / availability data. Ideally, if you are working with a supplier already, they will do this immediately. If not, temporarily, you can use our public API credentials for our demo website that carries most product in TourCMS. 
  4. Decide what data you want to take from TourCMS (see the section on content, above)
  5. Do the API integration development (we can give you access to the supplier side of the test operator account, if you want to see what the booking looks like in TourCMS)
  6. Ask TourCMS to sign off against the development checklist at the bottom of the useful information page
  7. Great! You are good to get trading!
  8. Now find suppliers & contract with them (or run existing contracts via TourCMS)
  9. Turn on for one or two suppliers for a few weeks, ensuring all is OK. YOU MUST contact any supplier before you turn on for bookings and wait for their sign off / agreement to go live
  10. Begin rollout to all TourCMS companies if that interests you. TourCMS can help you send an email to all suppliers in the TourCMS Marketplace, introducing your company to them

For Tour Operators or Suppliers:

Use of the TourCMS API is free, for more info view the Marketplace overview or sign up for a free agent account.

Common use cases

For integration with a travel guide use the Tour Search method to return tours (by keyword, location, comfort level, distance to a point etc). All results include an image, lat/long, summary, short description etc and tracked links for sending the customer through to the operators website for conversion. Or for a less technical solution, see our JavaScript Widgets.

For an agent creating a lead system you could have the customer fill in a form with their details which you can then send to the operator via the Create Enquiry method. This creates a tracked customer record so that any subsequent bookings are correctly credited.

For an agent creating a booking system use the Tour show method to return the main tour information. Then use the Creating Bookings methods to put bookings into the supplier direct TourCMS accounts. You may collect payments outside of the system (and the supplier will subsequently invoice you)

For a tour operator looking to build a post booking, pre-travel customer login: You can send the customer their login details using email templates (perhaps in their confirmation email). On your website you can validate their username/password using the Customer Login Search method and then allow them to answer some additional questions / submit more information to "Extra tour booking data" using the Show Booking and Update Booking methods or update their contact details with Update Customer.

Full API Method List

The information that follows is intended for developers. Here you can find our TourCMS API documentation.